EVENTS

Muslim Demographics

When I got into anti-theist activism, it actually had a lot less to do with Christianity than with Islam. It doesn’t matter to me which cult is in charge; whichever has the most power weilds the greatest threat. It’s just that with Christianity generally diminishing both nationally and globally, I wasn’t that concerned with them. But bearing their decline in mind, remember that for the last quarter century at least, Islam has been billed as the fastest growing religion on earth. Conservative Americans don’t seem to realize how the demographic is changing over the rest of the world, and that it is going to change here too.

Christians certainly don’t what to do about this. Whoever posted this video offers a completely unrealistic solution:

There is so much wrong with this. First of all, the poster is suggesting a form of eugenics, which Christians often criticize. It is also the least responsible strategy one can use with respect to the global environment, which Christians typically don’t care about either. The way to respond to exponentially increasing overpopulation is NOT by trying to have even more kids! Such a myopic plan also gives no consideration to children as having any individual value as people. The very idea is demeaning to their humanity.

Secondly the idea of sharing the gospel with Muslims simply will not work. (1) Islam is famously strict against apostasy, and Christians influence very few from their side in any case. (2) Muslim theology is much more efficient at gaining converts. That’s why they’re the fastest-growing religion, remember? More Christians turn Muslim than vice versa. (3) Christianity can’t even hang onto the people they already have. Religion is not the same thing as ‘race’. You can’t change your ancestors, but you can discard their traditions. Even if Christians did out-reproduce Muslims, statistics indicate that less than half of those kids would still be Christian by the time they grew up. A few might adopt some other religion; most of the rest will likely reject all religions, and that trend is rising.

Therein lies the answer. You can’t fight religion with religion. Everything Christians do trying to fuse church and state, all the power they give to their own faith, –will be used to pave the way for the next dominant dogma. Every time any religion has had power to enforce their own laws, the result has invariably been a violation of human rights. The only answer –and the founding fathers said this from the beginning- is a secular government with a “wall of separation” between church and state. Maintain that and you might keep mosque and state separate too.

One other hope comes from effective standardized education available to everyone. This is another thing to which American Christians are largely opposed. This is because the only religious perspective growing faster than Islam are those with no religious affiliation whatsoever. Somehow, even though (I think) a rational society without ignorant or bigoted doctrines would be ideal, that possibility scares theists so much they’d rather adopt foreign gods than consider my option.

Ignore for a moment the obviously sound national financial strategy behind having a competent and productive populace trained in fact-based knowledge as opposed to baseless belief with no practical application. All attempts to rid science from the lessons, to revise history, and corrupt other classes for the sake of promoting Christianity –will only serve to empower Muslims too. The very laws and customs enabling Christians to oppress others today will also give Islam power to oppress Christians tomorrow. You can’t have freedom *of* religion without freedom *from* religion, and that means keeping it out of government. So if Christians are really concerned about “Islamification”, then they ought to do the very opposite of everything they’re currently doing, and rally with the atheists to stay secular.

Comments

Excellent point. But so over their heads, they will never get it. I really don’t think the people that need convincing here, can see beyond their own little micro bubble of belief, or have the desire to even try and see the big picture. They will go down clinging to the rail of the Titanic, knowing their limited perspective is the only one. Any attempt to keep the ship from going down, or trying to save themselves, would be a lack of conviction.

I’m not sure how that strategy could be any worse. It’s typical fundamentalist hogwash:
-Deny the real problem or at least some part of it
-Replace the problem with a straw man
-Promote a “solution” that will solve neither the straw man nor the real problem

Atheists are still distrusted in this country to the point where even after 9/11, most Americans would still vote a Muslim into presidency over an atheist.

I agree 100% with you AronRa. But the problem lies within the individual to rather have a belief in a god than no god at all. Meaning that many Christians are more interested in promoting religious belief rather than non-religious belief. So they would rather have Islam than Atheism running their world. You’ve seen these polls before so you know where I’m coming fromhttp://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AtheistSurveys.htm

I looked up a few of the stats they mentioned and they were wrong (not to mention that these extrapolations without taking into account a lot of other factors are stupid). Should I have faith that they got the rest right? The video doesn’t even offer a historical perspective, like: how much have birth rates dropped in the “Muslim world” over the decades? And so on, and so on.

If they want people in “Christendom” to start pumping more babies out maybe they should starting offering them some actual support instead of empty verbiage. At least that way, they might be able to convince the people that would like to have children but think they might not be able to provide them with a decent standard of living to actually have some. There’s nothing wrong with having high standards when it comes to that and some people feel they can’t reach those under the current economic climate.

I see this sentiment time and time again, yet it still amazes me. Believers continue to think that the only reason a person has not joined christianity is that they have never heard of it. Sorry guys, but we have heard of it, but remain unconvinced.

It’s like they don’t understand that a large chunk of atheists (I would venture to say “most”) are former believers.

I react viscerally to certain apologetics. My strongest reactions come from the ones that are heinously dishonest; the second strongest from the fairly narcissistic implication that those who reject their dogma have merely not given it consideration. As if it is impossible to consider their mythology and still reject it as bunk.

that possibility scares theists so much they’d rather adopt foreign gods than consider my option.

Yep. I once had a discussion with a guy where I used the “We are both Atheists, I just disbelieve in one more god than you do” argument. He had no answer at the time, but the next time I saw him he said that he thought there was some truth in each of the thousand gods! So his position was that believing in any flavor of woo is better than accepting Empiricism.

I don’t know about the other countries mentioned in the video, but the numbers for the Netherlands aren’t quite as scary as the video makers want us to believe. First of all, birthrates for Muslim immigrants (for the Netherlands, mostly Moroccan and Turkish) are quite high, but by the second generation they drop to levels close to native Dutch women (source: the dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)). No idea where they got their “50% of babies are Muslim” statistic, I can’t find a decent source for this, but even if that were true, there is no reason to expect that to last very long, and every reason to expect that number to go down quickly.

Second, the religiosity of immigrants is also dropping, as measured by mosque attendance (source: CBS). Finally, most Muslims in the Netherlands are voting for secular (mostly left-leaning) parties, and don’t seem in much of a hurry to establish a national Muslim party.

All of this suggests to me, that Muslims will secularize in just about the same way as Christians do, when they are in a society that provides stability through social security and health care, and economic opportunities through public education. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be pockets of Muslims who will insulate themselves from the rest of society, and maintain fundamentalist beliefs, of course. After all, we still have Christians who do that. But it does indicate that the secular nature of The Netherlands isn’t in any more danger from Muslims than it is from Christians.